3.1.13

One Event - #Reverb12

As with last year, I'm participating in the Reverb Remix - this time, it'll be 20 posts throughout January, half looking back at 2012 and half looking forward to 2013. January is the Janus month, right?

One Event. Reflect on a major event that occurred in 2012. Select an event that was
experienced by people outside your immediate community.

For me, the incredibly interminable, divisive election was the major event that has stuck with me. I know, there were shootings and other events that affected people, but the rhetoric that followed all of them was so partisan and frequently hate-filled towards the people who didn't share the speaker's position - all part of the election process.

Whether or not Obama had a record to be proud of, or whether Republicans stymied his every move doesn't matter. Nor does it matter whether Romney cared about only 53% of us or liked firing people. What matters is the level of vitriol, the disgust for anyone on the other side. Maybe it's just me. Maybe it didn't stem from the Republicans trying to get back at the Democrats for Watergate... or Iran-Contra. Or the Democrats trying to get back at the Republicans for Whitewater. But it sure seems that way.

Our ability to live within echo chambers is harming us more than we can possibly imagine. If I had the power, I'd force all my friends who only read the NYTimes and the New Yorker and listen to NPR to read the Wall Street Journal and Nation, and watch Fox. And vice-versa. I'd force them to listen to the other side, to hear what the other half of the country is hearing and thinking about. Maybe that'd do some good.

My anger at all my friends, at their narrow-mindedness about what's right and how this country should be run still hasn't abated. That's the lasting legacy of the election of 2012.